Supreme Court Justice nominee Elena Kagan

[The 6th Wilbury]

Possible fodder for Thursday's show...

From the New York Times profile, written by Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Katharine Seelye and Lisa Foderaro:

She was the opera-loving, poker-playing, glass-ceiling-shattering first woman to be dean of Harvard Law School, where she reached out to conservatives (she once held a dinner to honor Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia) and healed bitter rifts on the faculty with gestures as simple as offering professors free lunch, just to get them talking.

From a CNN.com sidebar on May 11:

"She's really a down-to-earth, unpretentious person," said Harry Litman, who co-clerked with Kagan for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. "I've been to baseball games with her. She's the kind of person you'd like to go to a baseball game with."

Kagan also plays poker and drinks beer, according to Litman, who described her as "someone who from early on has focused on the law's impact on people's lives."

From a Fox News op-ed piece by Lis Wiehl, posted on May 10:

On the Kagan nomination, its hard for me to stay fair and balanced. Why? I've been a guest in her home many times when teaching and lecturing at Harvard Law School (my alma mater), and I found her to be an absolute gem. The Harvard Law School faculty is a contentious one, filled with large egos. Elena, the first female Dean of the Law School ran it with grace and clarity of judgment, from what I heard and observed.

A little known fact: she would have poker parties in her home, bringing together both liberal and conservative minded professors to hash out their differences over a friendly (if competitive) game.

From a poker/Poker Beat standpoint, I'm wondering if this could be the ally we need on the bench.